“Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was
lost!” (Luke 15:6b)
For several years now my congregation in
beautiful Northeast Philadelphia has been involved with Interfaith Hospitality
Network. Each August we open our downstairs fellowship space as a home for
temporarily homeless families. These are mostly single moms who, somehow or
other, have managed to find themselves without a permanent address. The social
workers of Interfaith Hospitality work with them to help them be better
stewards of their resources, find jobs, or learn parenting skills—whichever need
is the most pressing while they wait through the city’s six-month low-income
housing backlog. The families stay at our church for a month and then move on
to the next worshiping community (be it church, synagogue, or mosque) until
they are placed in permanent housing.
I’m happy to say that thirty-two members
of my small parish were willing to be volunteer hosts for our guest families
this past month. They brought them home-made dinners, watched their kids, and
generally tried to treat them like human beings in the midst of their
unfortunately crappy circumstances. As always happens, of course, there were
some complaints from church members. They claimed our guests were sloppy, that
they didn’t come for dinner on time, they didn’t do the dishes, their kids were
bratty, they left the air conditioning running, they didn’t leave the building when
they were supposed to, etc., etc.
(It just wouldn’t be a church if people
didn’t whine about something, you
know?)
I like to remind those who find fault
that, if our guests actually had their acts together, they wouldn’t be living
in a church basement. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves why we do acts of mercy in the first
place. When we first entered into this program, we were asked what we hoped to
get out of it. I responded that I wanted an incarnational ministry for my
church in which people could see that they had made a real difference in the
lives of others. One of my parishioners answered that this program would “make
God smile.” Others came up with similarly groovey-sounding answers, but one of
my teenagers simply said, “I want these homeless people to get back on their
feet.”
Well, dang. Out of the mouths of teens.
That’s really what it’s about. We have no control over who becomes homeless or
why. It is our duty, however, to help heal the broken, help lift the lowly,
welcome the stranger, and find the lost and welcome them back into society.
When our guests moved on this year to the
next church, Bob, the director of Northeast Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality
Network, remarked to me that one of last year’s guests—now safely in a home of
her own—had become a chaperone/mentor for those currently in the program. Bob
is a great young man (If he weren’t married, I’d consider him son-in-law
material!), and it was a thrill to see him rejoice
over the success of one of the formerly homeless. I felt that there was joy
in the presence of the angels of God, too.
In this Sunday’s Gospel from the RCL (Luke
15: 1-10), Jesus teaches us about rejoicing when the lost are found. It’s meant
as a critique against those who get their shorts bunched up over why people get
“lost” to begin with. We are to be supporters, not judges.
Think about it. If you’re a parent and you
have a child with an addiction or an eating disorder, do you condemn or abandon
that child? Wouldn’t you diligently search for the best care you could find to
bring him or her back to your family in one piece? Would you not remain hyper-vigilant
during the recovery process? Looking carefully into the child’s eyes? Searching
their room? Watching for needle marks? Checking to see that they are eating?
And when that lost child reaches a
recovery milestone or graduates from school or gets married or achieves some
goal of a normal, healthy, functioning human being, aren’t you overcome with
joy? Don’t you want to throw a party and celebrate?
All of us, after all, are lost in some
way. Jesus has gone to pretty drastic lengths to find us and bring us back to
ourselves. I’d say that calls for a party, wouldn’t you?
If your lost sheep is found, say a prayer
of thanks sometime this week. Let the joy of the Lord into your heart, and enjoy
a foretaste of the feast to come.
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